Jodi, who has recently completed her Masters in interactive gaming, started her discussion by exploring what pervasive gaming meant to different people. It was clear that while there several gamers (both hobbyists and hardcore) in the audience, there weren’t a lot of people with a lot of experience in this field. From the discussions it was also apparent that the phenomenon had a larger following in Europe and UK rather than in Australia. It is not currently clear whether this is a cultural issue - or driven by the physical environment. For instance, it is a lot easier to undertake pervasive gaming in a built up area as there are more people and locations to interact with.
Part of the discussion focussed on an emerging trend whereby the traditional boundary between ‘game play’ and ‘real life’ is blurring so that real life and in-world activities may be undertaken at the same time. A similar parallel is that of work and leisure time becoming more blended - this just takes it one step further.
One of the challenges Jodi mentioned preventing wider uptake of this hobby is reliability of technology - many games are GPS or mobile depdendent and if there are reception issues gameplay is inhibited.